adirondack inks and the gelli plate

It was the Happy Stampers rubber stamping festival yesterday and I had a fabulous time meeting up with loads of stamping friends (with no local stamp store anymore it's our twice yearly chance to touch base, other than on the internet) ...

... and shopping of course!  I also learnt a new technique.  It had never occurred to me to use my gelli plate with inks so I couldn't wait to try it out at home after Tracey, from Lavinia Stamps, had shown me.  She has made a youtube video, which you can watch here and I took some step by step photos for my third tag.

I apologise for the light, I took these photos this evening.  The beauty of the gelli plate is that you can see through it, so place a tag underneath and use this as a template for where to brayer and stamp.

After brayering with adirondack inks I stamped some Lavinia stamp images, using the same ink pads, then lined my tag up with the tag underneath the gelli plate.

Using a gelli plate gives a different texture to the stamped images.  I'm still learning about how much ink etc to apply so added some more colour using a sponge.

I used my spun sugar distress ink pad to add a pale pink to my tag as I wanted to enter this month's Lavinia Stamps challenge where the theme is 'add some pink'.  Since I'd used some distress ink I splashed some water on in order to lift some ink off.  The 'water' I used was from my water jar on the table, which I'd used to rinse my brushes off, so had effectively turned into watered down acrylic paint, but I do like the effect it gave!!

Tracey's new zen line of stamps are gorgeous and I bought a fair few with my birthday money!!  

I stamped the teasels onto the tag then stamped them onto some white paper so I could paper piece them......

....I just LoVe black and white imagery against a coloured background.

Thanks so, so much for sharing this technique with me Tracey, I just LoVe it!!  I'm entering this tag in this month's Lavinia Stamps Challenge, 'Add something pink'.

french butterfly tag

I so appreciate being on the Stampotique Designers' team; it gets me making something every week!  I ReaLLY enjoyed making this tag :)  I got some happy post this week and some of the stamps I used were in it...

When I ordered the stamps I had the idea of combining both Papillon stamps to form the background but changed my mind after stamping the script version.

I folded some paper over the base of the tag to mask the bottom inch or so then repeatedly stamped Papillon Script with a black ink pad.

I'm afraid this is as far as I got with the step by step photos so I'll just have to describe it to you!  I stamped the large butterfly on some pre-sprayed paper, and stamped the centre of it (inking it up first then masking the wings with post-its) onto the tag so that I kept the detail of the antennae after cutting out the butterfly.

After spraying some dylusions slate grey ink onto a strip of plastic (acting as a palette) I tried stamping with this and got a lovely effect which I then stamped row of numbers onto.

A few scraps of stamped and sprayed paper collaged onto the edges and my tag was done.  Hope you like it!!

Stampotique stamps used:

Papillon script by Jo Capper-Sandon

Large Butterfly by Jo Capper-Sandon

Row of Numbers by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Time Square by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Happiness is ...

Yesterday was International Happiness Day so I decided to theme this week's projects around happiness.  Stamping and playing with paint AlwAys makes me happy!!

A while ago I made up a collection of cards and tags using scrap background paper from my table and decided to use these for my backgrounds.

After mistakenly using 'stamp n bond' I finally found my detail white embossing powder to lift the dark background.  I've not heat embossed anything for years!!  The heart has glossy accents on to add shine to the card.  There's another happiness themed project over on the Stampotique Designers' blog today.  Thanks for coming by, that makes me happy too!!!

Stampotique stamps used:

Heart tie by Jo Capper-Sandon

The earth laughs in flowers by Janet Klein

Owlseeyou by Kira Nichols

Journey Collage by Amy Wilson Wellenstein

Happy happy 

Daisy daisy by Jo Capper-Sandon

teeny tiny art journaling

 I'd love an old ledger to use as an art journal but haven't found one yet.  I did find an old diary on ebay though..

... it was just a bit smaller than I expected!!

But I love it!  I do enjoy working 'small'.  So for this week's Stampotique blog project I did a teeny weeny journal page.

For the background I sprayed some dylusions inks onto a plastic surface (the lid of a box) then smooshed my paper through them.  I love how this adds layers of splodges onto your page.

I made up some coloured papers in the same way and used them to paper piece 'Cockatoo Screech' and 'Banner', which I trimmed and doodled around.  I'm looking forward to completing more pages in this teeny journal, it's such a cute size!!

Stampotique stamps used:

Cockatoo Screech by Kylie DiOrio

Banner by France Papillon

just being u isn't always easy

It's not always easy to be yourself.  We worry about what people will think of us so choose what to portray and what not to....

... I got quite philosophical whilst making this simple scrapling for Stampotique this week!!!  Such a simple sentiment on the surface but it really got me thinking.

This week I've left the instructions over on the Stampotique Designer's blog, alongside my fellow designers, three of whom also used this stamp!

Stamps used:

Daniel's Hearts by Daniel Torrente

Just be U by Roc Nicholas